overleaf-connect

An MCP server to have agents use Overleaf for free.

Once it's connected, an agent can:

• create or duplicate projects
• list, read, write, and edit .tex files
• compile a project and pull the PDF back locally

Installation

If you dont have uv installed, install it.

It needs your Overleaf session cookie to do anything, so grab that first:

1. Sign in at overleaf.com.
2. Open DevTools -> Network, reload the project list, click any overleaf.com request, and copy the full Cookie request header.

Copy over this for the OVERLEAF_SESSION environment variable in the MCP server.

Claude Code

claude mcp add overleaf -e OVERLEAF_SESSION="overleaf_session2=s%3A...; GCLB=..." -- uvx overleaf-connect

Claude Desktop

Open Settings -> Developer -> Edit Config and add an overleaf entry under mcpServers (keep any servers you already have):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "overleaf": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["overleaf-connect"],
      "env": {
        "OVERLEAF_SESSION": "overleaf_session2=s%3A...; GCLB=..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Afterwards, restart Claude Desktop to reload the MCP servers and get Overleaf connected.

Authentication

Overleaf issues a fresh cookie on every request. After the first success the server saves the rotating value to:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\overleaf-connect\session.json
• macOS / Linux: ~/.overleaf-connect/session.json

The OVERLEAF_SESSION environment variable is treated as a seed - the server will automatically refresh the session whenever requests are done to Overleaf, and store it. You only need to change it in the future if the cookie has expired from not using it.

Optional environment variables

OVERLEAF_HOME_DIR=...      # directory that holds session.json
OVERLEAF_SESSION_FILE=...  # exact session.json path
OVERLEAF_CACHE_DIR=...     # compiled-PDF cache
OVERLEAF_OUTPUT_DIR=...    # allowed download_pdf destination root
                          # (default: ~/Downloads/overleaf-connect, or
                          #  ~/Documents/overleaf-connect, else ~/overleaf-connect)

Tools

Tool	What it does
status	check if session cookie works
list_projects	id, name, last updated
create_project	blank project
duplicate_project	clone an existing project
list_files	paths in a project
read_file	text contents of a file (full=true for files over 100k chars)
write_file	whole-file create/replace
edit_file	exact old/new string replace in a file
compile_project	Overleaf compile -> cached output.pdf + parsed errors
download_pdf	compile and copy the PDF under OVERLEAF_OUTPUT_DIR
trash_project	move a project to Overleaf trash

Writes replace the whole file, so write_file refuses to write back a file that was only read in part - read it again with full=true, or use edit_file. Don't edit a file while someone is typing in it in the browser.